


Keep Breathing

by clantail (ideallyqualia)



Category: selector infected WIXOSS
Genre: Canon Universe, Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Past Abuse, Recovery, Yuletide Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-25
Updated: 2016-12-25
Packaged: 2018-09-11 21:18:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,253
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9028489
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ideallyqualia/pseuds/clantail
Summary: Akira had forgotten.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Reishiin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Reishiin/gifts).



> Hey yuletide recipient! I wanted to write a wixoss treat and something a little dark, and your prompts struck a chord with me. thanks for giving me this opportunity! happy yuletide!
> 
> Also, the character tag for Iona isn't for Yuki, it's for the real Iona. (That's some confusing tag...)

Akira curled her hands to the edge of the countertop. Her face stood in the mirror, present and unable to be ignored, but Akira still didn't want to see it. Without looking, she drew her hand over her face, tracing over the raised skin that formed her jagged scar.

The impression of the first second burned in her memory; the tearing pain, red hot energy ripping apart her skin, the involuntary scream that strained her throat and left it raspy for days. She hadn't even been given the chance to process the loss. The first thing she had experienced was the pain, so strong that she couldn't keep her mouth shut.

She dragged herself to the window. Akira didn't have a job to occupy herself anymore, and she couldn't work herself into a mood to go to school, so she spent the time either being in Ulith's presence or waiting for Ulith to appear.

Akira couldn't stand Ulith anymore. Pain. Ulith had hit her directly in the stomach, incurring physical pain. Akira felt jolted awake from it; she could argue with herself that Ulith loved her, she could spin it in a way that veiled all the emotional abuse, but the moment Ulith punched her, she lost the ability to overlook anything. It ripped her back through time, and tearing back and forth through her memories of the selector battles, the scar's pain, every loss, it left her feeling almost nothing. The truth came to the surface, present and unable to be ignored; her scar in the mirror. Pain.

Pain was what brought the scar, and pain will undo it.

 

* * *

 

Akira bided her time quietly. She followed Ulith out for a walk, and Ulith reflected out loud, not bothering to hide her plan for the suffering of all selectors in the city. Akira didn't pay much attention.

"Ulith?" Akira asked, interrupting the silence in her head.

"What is it?"

"Am I...unsightly?" Akira repeated. Ever since Ulith had said the word about Hitoe's scar, Akira repeated, repeated, repeated it, almost until it lost meaning. Not enough for her to forget the implication; Ulith hated the scar.

Whatever Ulith said, it was a lie. Akira stopped listening to her completely after she tried to call Akira "beautiful."

Akira pulled a pen out of her pocket and clicked it, readying the sharp pen tip. Ulith continued to talk. She didn't notice Akira come closer, didn't warn her to keep her unsightly face away.

Right beside her, Akira lowered the pen and stabbed her, twisting the pen into the side of her stomach. Ulith gasped. She couldn't fight back against the pain, and she clutched herself as she fell. The thump of her body was quiet. Blood spread from the wound and stained her shirt.

 _This_ is what's beautiful. Ulith had cultivated her own fate. Akira followed her instructions, too, to the end; don't scar someone where it can be seen. Scar them where it's softer, where they'll scar more.

Akira used ink. It'll definitely scar.

 

* * *

 

The selector games ended. Akira didn't believe it at first. Even when her scared healed, and LRIG cards disappeared, she didn't have the ability to believe it. She needed _proof_ of all her suffering and pain. Her scar had been ugly, but it grounded her in reality and convinced her that she wasn't lying to herself. Nobody could deny her of her wallowing; she deserved to lock herself away and do what she wanted.

Someone knocked at her door. "Akira?" the visitor asked gently. "Are you there?"

Nobody could fool Akira. Ulith's voice carried the question; Ulith stood on the other side of the door.

Akira kicked the door instead of answering. The visitor stumbled.

"Akira, I'm worried about you."

Akira erupted into laughter. " _Worried_?"

"Yes."

Akira cut herself off. " _Ha_. What're you going to do, Ulith? Apologize?"

The visitor paused. "Ulith? I'm not Ulith."

Akira kicked the door another time. "Leave me alone! Or I'll stab you again!"

"Stab?!" she stammered.

" _Yes_ ," Akira said, the burn of a slight smile giving her satisfaction. "Remember? I stabbed you. There's a scar on your stomach."

Ulith rummaged for a moment. "I don't see it."

Akira snorted. "Delusional much? Just go away, Ulith. You know I'm the stronger one. I can hurt you, easily."

Ulith walked away. Akira rested against the door.

 

* * *

 

The modeling agency called her back. Akira still refused to believe that the selector battles were over.

She couldn't turn down money or a job, though. She came to work and accepted a photo shoot. She was the only one signed up to sponsor a clothing company in an advertisement, so she was comfortable that nothing would go wrong, that no one would show up and ruin it.

Akira stepped out of the building and stretched her arms to the air, staring straight ahead. No one had remembered the time she had the scar. It was as if nothing happened. She drifted around a few blocks with a surreal sense of the world lodged in her mind, but nothing convinced her of anything. Her anguish had been real; it couldn't be reduced to a _dream_.

Akira's eyes focused outside of her thoughts again when she bumped into someone. Ulith resolved in front of her, and she jolted backward.

" _Ulith_ ," she hissed.

"Akira!" Ulith stepped forward with her hands clasped together over her chest. "How are you? Are you feeling better? I heard you're modeling again."

Akira clapped her hands over her ears. "Shut up, shut up, shut _up_!"

Her feet refused to submit to her will and move. She kept her hands on her ears, still yelling, shut off from herself and unable to realize that she had devolved into whispering to herself. She trembled in place.

Ulith placed her hands on Akira's arm. "Akira. It's me, Iona."

Akira didn't hear it or react. Ulith nudged one of Akira's hands away from her ear.

"Akira, listen to me. My name is Iona, and I'm one of your friends. We work for the same modeling agency."

Akira's hands lowered. "Ulith?"

"No. Iona." She slipped a step back. "Are you alright? We got separated after I turned into an LRIG. Something terrible must've happened to you."

Akira drew her hands over her upper arms. "Something...terrible..."

Iona's eyes softened. "I spoke to two other selectors when I regained my body, and they told me about Ulith. Ulith left my body a while ago. She's gone. Did she do something to you? I'm sorry I left you alone."

Iona's voice was soft, too. Ulith could never soften her voice like that. Even if she was the best actress in the world, Akira knew there was _no_ way she could break out of her own personality and abandon her sadistic self.

Iona advanced closer to Akira, centimeter by centimeter, waiting for Akira to respond, until she was almost touching Akira. Without any complaints, Iona accepted the silence as her answer. She moved her arms around Akira in a hug.

"I'm not Ulith," Iona reassured Akira. "Is there anything you need? Let me help you. I'm no longer capable of handling tears after seeing so many selectors cry, so I don't want to see you cry, either."

Akira couldn't unstiffen, but finally, under the spell remedy of hearing Ulith's voice denouncing Ulith and no longer being Ulith, she remembered Iona. It's been so long that she almost forgot who the real Iona was, underneath the people that had inhabited Iona's body.

"You're back," Akira said.

**Author's Note:**

> (General A/N that exists at the end of all my fics): I find unsolicited concrit really rude, I'm not looking for any. Please don't tell me someone was OOC/something happened you didn't like/it's too short/etc. in any bookmarks or comments.


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